


A Snake in the House

by Silverhaunter



Category: Hannibal (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: After the fall in Hannibal, Before the fall in Sherlock, Gen, I WANT TO CRY, I accidentally clicked delete instead of new tab and lost all my work, I'm so angry with myself, I'm so dissapointed in myself, I'm three years late and nobody cares, Lots of praise for Will Graham, M/M, So yeah, but - Freeform, he needs it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 08:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13923408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverhaunter/pseuds/Silverhaunter
Summary: Will Graham is the most frustratingly intelligent man Sherlock Holmes has ever met, and he's looked in the mirror and his brother is Mycroft.Hannibal Lecter is the most infuriatingly well masked creature that has ever existed. He's sure of it.Moriarty wants to work with both.Hannibal is the apex predator, and does not bow to lower beings.





	A Snake in the House

**Author's Note:**

> Here. Take it.  
> I'm going to go cry now.  
> I lost all my work from my original draft and I was really happy with it and now I'm sad  
> I was basically done too

**_This is my design._ **

  
  
  
  


Lestrade has a panicked note in his voice, one he doesn’t usually have, “There’s been a murder, if- We barely even know if it’s human. No DNA except for the body. DNA samples say it’s a girl, or, was a girl. Mary Wilson. I’m asking for help, I’ll even say please, just get here now. The guy who found her is still here. He’s an American. He has a habit of sleepwalking, her screaming woke him up, and- god, just get over here.”

Sherlock doesn’t seem entirely convinced, until they get there.

The scene is _grotesque, but painted like an art style._

_This is the killer’s design._

“Will Lyder is the fella who found her.”

John can barely keep the bile from rising to his throat. The woman has been twisted into odd angles, her bones broken into shards to form flowers made of bone held together by strings of her hair, her head rests in arms that were surgically removed while she still was alive.

“Cause of death was strangulation, we think. There’s not enough body left to tell properly. So we called you.”

“She screamed when she died, it’s unlikely it was strangulation.” The witness mutters, “I was down the road, but the sound was so faint, she probably screamed as a last-ditch effort to save herself. If you look at her neck, and chin there’s a arterial spray from having her throat cut, and blood on her right side hand where she tried to stop the flow.”

 

Sherlock cannot read this man.

_Why can he not read this man?_

_He can see the obvious, like someone who pays close attention could._

_Has a dog, probably, judging by the fur. Judging by the dog he’s petting._

_His feet are worn down, he did in fact sleep walk, there are bandages and the heavy smell of antiseptic._

_He doesn’t sleep a lot, only eats because someone makes him. He’d probably forget._

 

_And… and…_

_And?_

“I was a special consultant for the FBI, I was a professor at the academy. I worked a lot of gruesome cases.” Will’s voice is far-off, distant, and John is talking to him,

“Do you sleep walk a lot?”

“I used to, I had advanced encephalitis, so I lost time, hallucinated a lot.” The feathered stag is a hallucination, but it is not a frightening one, anymore.

“Do you still sleepwalk?”

“Once in a while.”

Sherlock strides up to him, “What are you playing at?”

Will raises an eyebrow, “Chess.” _His attractive noncommittal submission is damning._

He stands up, gets close to Sherlock, close enough to whisper into his ear with a murmur and say, “A certain man with a certain name came by my apartment the other day.He told me to ask if you miss him."

Will steps back, and whistles, “Winston."

He retreats with his dog, and gives Sherlock a sideways glance, eyes glinting with intelligence.

_He is a good fisherman, because Sherlock follows._

“Are you with Moriarty?”

"Not exactly.

“Is your name really Will Lyder?”

"Not exactly."

“Did you kill that woman?”

“Not exactly."

“Is that your dog?”

“Yes.”

“Is your name Will Graham?”

“What will you do if it was?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m curious, Mr. Holmes, as to what would happen. Nothing more."

Sherlock has never seen a man more infuriatingly _intelligent_ than Will Graham.

He’s yet to meet Hannibal.

“Would you like to come in for coffee, or, perhaps, tea?” Will asks, as if their conversation never transpired, (he has picked up Hannibal’s tricks, and wears his own perfect masks.)

“What will be waiting for me if I do?”

“Tea or coffee, unless you prefer something stronger.” The voice of a man taller than Will breaks through his attempt at analysis.

“Trying to psychoanalyze him will not end well, Mr. Holmes. I think you know why you are here." Will brushes by Hannibal, body humming with intent.

“Moriarty has sent others to play his games.”

“We create our own games, Mr. Holmes. It would do you well to remove the chip from your cell phone.” Will returns and has put on a simple white button-down and black slacks. Hannibal wears something similar, the shirt dark red.

“You are not playing his games either, then?”

“I really was sleep walking, and I did not kill that woman. I was only meant to pretend I might have. Hannibal did not kill her either, there was no art there.” He says it like he's bored.

John gives Sherlock a look that screams ‘If you go in there and they don’t kill you, I bloody well might.’ but he goes in anyway.

Sherlock gazes around the room, red curtains, velvet, maybe, Italian, most certainly, two chairs sit one facing the other and a therapist’s couch sits in the corner, a desk is in a room to their right and a fireplace faces them as they walk in, the dog lies down in his carefully placed bed beside it. The firelight would flicker shadows across anyone sitting in those chairs. The kitchen and dining room are both slightly differently decorated than the rest of the house, more intensely luxurious, to the left of the kitchen is a bedroom with what seems to be a desk littered with fishing lures and poles standing against the wall in a rack beside it, and another door sits closed adjacent to it. Hannibal pulls something out of the oven, says whatever it’s name is, (Sherlock isn’t listening, because, trying to listen to a man that might as well not exist because there’s nothing about him that proves he’s in any way not a figment of Sherlock’s imagination come to haunt him, so impossible to read, there’s nothing different about him, his clothes are maybe a matter of taste, probably Will's taste, he probably likes cooking, he can’t see anything anybody else couldn’t) so he sits down to the left of Hannibal L and lets John sit next to the not-really-intimidating Will Graham while the two sip wine at nearly the same time like two parts of a single whole.

“Last time we had red I ended up drinking more of my own blood than the wine.” Will says, with a cold indifference but the slight edge of a jovial tone to his voice, he is slender but he is almost entirely bone and muscle, he has a scar on the right side of his face, fitting just where the flesh of his cheek stretches when he opens his jaw. The scar is almost neat, the blade plunged into his mouth rather than across his face. A wound caused by someone’s hate, the blade was lifted, or perhaps Will was lifted. There’s probably a chip in his tooth.

His head is framed with dark curls and he silently dissects Sherlock  with piercing blue eyes, interrupted by ribbons of shades of golden brown.

Hannibal  seems amused, but there is little else to tell from anything about him, he doesn’t give away anything, and they both take sips, “This is a better year than the last bottle.”

“You said you needed help on a case?” Sherlock wasn’t listening, so he’s not sure what they said, but he assumes it’s close.

Will looks astounded and snorts as Hannibal makes _absolutely no gesture at all that indicates something funny_ , “We just came from a crime scene. A man called Moriarty told us to deliver you a message, I did, and we want to know what it means.”

Hannibal barely moves, but Will looks at him like they’ve just had a conversation, silently.

“Jim Moriarty spoke with you?” John asks, with his nurse’s voice.

“I attract his sort of people.” Will says, with a sip, before setting the crystal down on the table, and pushing it away from the edge.

“And what are his sort?”

“Intelligent psychopaths, sociopaths, anybody who’d try to kill me,” he smiles, “or anybody who’d kill _for_ me.”

Hannibal sets down his wine glass, an amused lift to his lips, “Mr. James Moriarty-”

“Jim.”

“Sorry?”

  
“It’s Jim. Jim Moriarty.”

“So it is.” Hannibal says, his expression not revealing anything, Will clearly sees something, though, raising his brows.

“I’d really like to stay here for a small while, so, if you could push whatever thought away that just sprung into your mind, I’d be grateful,” Will murmurs, pressing his lips to Hannibal's cheek, standing and looking toward the window, “And please, don’t try to pull the, ‘but it really was a suicide’ card just to try to amuse me, again, I’m tired.” He doesn’t say it offensively, his tone is almost amused, breathless, a sort of 'if you don't stop plotting I'm going to give you a reason to be tired, too.'

Hannibal chuckles very quietly, “You act like it did not amuse you.”

“It did.” Will whispers before retreating to his room, “Good luck, Mr. Holmes.”

Neither John nor Sherlock hear the window open, but Will is surely out of the room.


End file.
